Rethinking SEO for

Inbound Marketing Success

THE BASICS
How Search
Engines Work
Any time you search for something online,
you are almost instantly presented with a list of
(mostly) relevant results from all over the web.
Somehow, search engines are able find the web
pages that match your specific queries. And more
importantly, how can optimizing for search engines
still play a role in helping your business get found?
In the simplest terms, you can think of searching the
web as looking in a very large book with a very, very
impressive index. This index tells you exactly where
everything is located. When you perform a search,
programs check against the index to determine the
most relevant search results, as well as the order (or
rank) in which they will appear and be returned to you.

What is SEO?
SEO refers to techniques that help your website rank
higher in organic (or natural) search results, thus
making your website more visible to people who are
looking for your brand, your product, or your service
via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Over the years, the recipe for ranking success has
included things like title tags, meta descriptions,
keyword tags, keyword density, H1 tags, image
attributes, links from certain domains, volume
of links, quality of links, internal link structure,
anchor text in inbound links, and more.

The Changing Face of SEO

More recently, the ingredient list for a perfect search
ranking has expanded to include tweets, retweets,
likes, social mentions, page load time, rel-canonical
management, and content marketing. However,
the tried and true approaches to SEO are more
important than ever with Googles recent algorithm
changes things like user experience (UX), quality
of content, and depth of content to mention a few.
Creating an exceptional user experience is directly tied
into quality and depth of content. SEO efforts must be
focused on creating valuable content for the user while
providing an efficient and user-friendly experience. The
more valuable a website is to internet users, the more
traffic, links and shares will be generated. Increasing
traffic, links and shares will signal to search engines
that there is quality content on the website or specific
page, in turn leading to higher overall ranking.
Blogging is also a great way to improve your online
search ranking. Each and every blog post is considered
a new page for Google and other search engines to
index. If youre blogging frequently (we like to say
once per week should be the bare bones minimum!)
youre constantly giving search engines new material
to crawl. The more you blog, the longer your site
remains current in the eyes of almighty engine gods.
Yet with all of this SEO knowledge that
has been accumulated, so many websites
still fail. How is this possible?

The answer:
Marketers are stuck in their old ways.

144 E Market St, West Chester, PA 19382 610.692.6229 www.stratusinteractive.com

Weighting of Thematic Clusters of

Ranking Factors in Google
5.21%

6.98%
20.94%

7.24%
8.06%

19.15%

8.59%

9.8%
14.94%

Domain-Level, Link Authority Features

Quantity of links to the domain, trust/quality of
links to the domain, domain-level PageRank
Page-Level Link Features
PageRank, TrustRank, quality of link/links, anchor
text distribution, quality of link sources
Page-Level Keyword & Content Features
Topic-modeling scores on content,
content quality/ relevance
Page-Level, Keyword Agnostic Features
Content length, readability, uniqueness, load speed
Domain-Level Brand Features
Offline usage of brand/domain name, mentions
of brand/domain in news/media/press

*based on MOZ survery responses

by 128 professionals in June 2013

User, Usage, & Traffic/Query Data

Traffic/usage signals from browsers/
toolbars/clickstream, quantity/diversity/
click-through-rate of queries
Social Metrics
Quantity/quality of tweeted links,
Facebook shares, Google +1s
Domain-Level Keyword Usage
Exact-match keyword domains,
partial=keyword matches
Domain-Level, KeywordAgnostic Features
Domain name length, TLD extension,
domain HTTP response time

144 E Market St, West Chester, PA 19382 610.692.6229 www.stratusinteractive.com

BACK IN THE DAY

How We Used to Think
About SEO
Once upon a time, SEO could be defined
using two broad categories: 1) on-page
SEO, and 2) off-page SEO, which could be
boiled down to 1) keywords, and 2) links.
The idea was to aggregate as many of each in
order to beat your competitors in the search
results and rank as close to #1 as possible

On-Page SEO

Off-Page SEO

Keywords Links
Page Title
Links
Title Tags
Links

The Problems with Old SEO

1 SEO was treated like a game
2 SEO was about quantity,not quality.
3 SEO was focused on search engines,
not searchers.

4 SEO was too cookie cutter.

Never assume that your site should rank #1 without

first knowing why its helpful to searchers. Just ranking
isnt enough: You need to provide what people are
looking for with enough depth and insight that
they stay on your site and are compelled to take
action (contact you, share your content, etc.).

TODAY
An Introduction to Modern SEO
According to Google, SEO is about making small
[meaningful] modifications to parts of your website.
When viewed individually, these changes might seem
like incremental improvements, but when combined
with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable
impact on your sites user experience and performance
in organic search results [where] your ultimate
consumers are your users, not search engines.
In short, you need to understand not only the
web, but also your visitors and what your visitors
wantand getout of your website.

The Key to SEO:

Meaningful Content

Learning from the Past

Rankings happen for many reasons, and the
keyword or query is just the initiator of the
process. You should optimize a page to be the
strongest it can be in search only after youve made
it the best page for a specific need or topic.
There are multiple variations of keywords for
any one topic, and therefore your focus should
be on the page and the topic, not just one or
two of potentially hundreds of keywords.

By creating content that is high quality, compelling,

and relevant, you can engage your sites visitors in
a meaningful way. When content resonates with
someone, it feels personal and authentic. The new
direction of SEO is all about creating a unique
user experience for each visitor and personalizing
those experiences as much as possible.

144 E Market St, West Chester, PA 19382 610.692.6229 www.stratusinteractive.com

How Your Website Helps

(or Hurts) SEO
You want your website to easily provide that unique
user experience, right? Unfortunately, most websites
are stale and do just the opposite. Heres why:

1 Websites need additional coding to

optimize for mobile.
Many websites today require special templates
or additional coding to optimize for mobile.
When a mobile searcher arrives on a site that
isnt mobile-friendly, the site does not render
properly in any browser size and on any device.
This forces the user to zoom in and scroll all
over the place in order to find what they are
looking for; this is not a good experience!

2 Websites offer a confusing experience

for the user.
76% of website visitors want a site that makes it
easy for me to find what I want. Many websites
do not provide a logical content hierarchy with
easily identifiable categories in their navigation
bar. The solution for the user is pretty simple;
just leave the website and get the content
somewhere else, which leads to high bounce
rates (visitor leaves site after one page view).

3 Some websites are slow to load.

The speed and performance of your website
will vary depending on what CMS you use.
Your goal is to provide the best experience
for your user, so make sure your pages are
loading as quickly as possible, especially for
slower connection like mobile. Pages that are
slow to load once again lead to high bounce
rates because internet users want to consume
information instantly. Luckily, you can test your
sites speed with Googles PageSpeed Tools.

4 Many websites havent caught up with

recent search engine changes.
Social media and mobile have more influence
on SEO than ever before. Despite this fact, most
Content Management System (CMS) tools have
yet to incorporate the ability to share individual
pages, blog posts, or the website via social
media. In terms of mobile, CMS options such as
WordPress and the Hubspot COS offer built in
responsive (mobile optimized) frameworks, which
creates a cost effective solution for developers.

So, What Do You Need?

You need a full-circle website strategy that truly
considers SEO and all of its integral components
- a CMS, exceptional user experience, keyword
strategy, blogging etc. Inbound marketing
is the bridge that spans the gap between a
website and a fully optimized website.
Inbound marketing is about tailoring your content
creation strategy to attract not just any old person
wandering around the internet, but your ideal
customers -- also known as your buyer personas.
Wouldnt it be great if for each one of those personas
the content that your website displayed was actually
unique like how Amazon tailors what you see
based on what you like? Did you even know this was
possible? The Hubspot COS (content optimization
system) is the latest technology that allows you
to serve up unique content that is tailored to your
potential buyer. Not ready to take that leap yet?
WordPress is the largest open source CMS and
provides easily customizable responsive frameworks.
Forget the days where you had to call up your web
developer to change or update on-page copy; you can
change it yourself without any coding knowledge.

144 E Market St, West Chester, PA 19382 610.692.6229 www.stratusinteractive.com

Where Do Keywords
Fit In?
The tried-and-true approach to keyword optimization
requires that you research relevant keywords, track
visitors through your site, watch conversions, tweak,
and then try to make the right decisions. The
keywords you optimize your site around serve as
the foundation upon which each and every page is
built. Selecting the right keywords (those that speak
to and use the same language as your ideal
buyer) is essential to building that framework.
Beyond having a strong, user-focused keyword
foundation, your website pages themselves can help
to attract new visitors to your site. This is because
Google gives precedence to pages that load quickly
and whose HTML is search-engine friendly.

Finding the Right Keywords

A search engines job is to match searchers to the
right search results. Your job is to make sure you get
found, which you can accomplish by creating content
and using keywords focused on topics that genuinely
describe your business, services, solutions, offerings, etc.
Begin with brainstorming a list of words and phrases
that your buyer personas or ideal buyers are likely
to associate with your business. Think in terms of
two- to three-word keyword phrases (also known
as long-tail keywords) as opposed to individual
words. Individual words are too competitive
and yield unfocused results for searchers.

Get started with our Keyword Development

Worksheet, which provides questions you should
be asking, keyword categories you need to
satisfy and structure to keep you organized.

Download Keyword
Development Worksheet

Loss of Data Neednt

Mean Loss of Direction
With Google encrypting search more widely now (80%
or more of a sites keyword data is now unknown),
marketers may be at a loss as to which keywords
are driving success. However, if you focus entirely
on what you dont have anymore, your SEO will
come to a standstill. Instead, focus on what you can
(or could) have, such as page analytics and visitor
data (i.e. how an individual found your website
and how theyre engaging with your content).
With so much broad data available to help you
understand your visitors today, its easier than ever
to look at behavioral patterns, build sites that elicit
desired responses, and align your business in ways
that impress searchers and keep them coming back.

144 E Market St, West Chester, PA 19382 610.692.6229 www.stratusinteractive.com

How to Rock at SEO

Today: 10 Tips
1
2
3
4

Develop more unique, in-depth content

Truly understand what quality means
Truly understand your buyer personas
Dont add content for the sake
of having more content

5 Never add pages without having

Your blog is an excellent (if not the best) place on

your site to provide this helpful, educational material,
and one of the most effective ways to share this
content with the world is through social media.
Regularly sharing content via your social posts,
tweets, etc. can also help to get your name out there
and in return bring people to your website.

Create for Humans,

Not Search Engines

direct access to them

6 Rethink what link-building means

7 Rethink what keywords mean
8 Test your pages in different
browsers before publishing

9 Make sure your site is technically

optimized (if using a traditional CMS)

10 Make sure you have a Google+ personal

profile and that its tied to your content

THE FUTURE
If you are useful, they will come!
We dont want any old traffic coming to our site we
want the right traffic. We want the people who
are going to be the most likely to become leads,
and, ultimately, happy customers. The content
that best attracts those right people is content
that is educational in nature and that appeals
to those who are just beginning to recognize
they have a problem that needs solving.

Search engines are extremely complex. The

bottom line is that search engines are trying
to anticipate what human beings want as they
search even before they begin their search!
It is very easy to get caught up in the old way of
thinking about SEO: links, keywords, and rank. However,
modifying your websites content with the idea that
youll rank in Google is like going out and buying a
lottery ticket with the hopes that youll strike it big.
Always err on the side of providing the best content
you can. We like to use the acronym, ISEDE (if search
engines didnt exist). You should always ask yourself,
if search engines didnt exist, would I still be putting
this information/content/imagery on my website?
If you find yourself doing something solely for the
search engines you should reassess your strategy.

144 E Market St, West Chester, PA 19382 610.692.6229 www.stratusinteractive.com